It sounds like you had a pretty normal experience. The stores are small, but that usually means I can get in and out quickly. TJ's is not known for their produce or meat. If you like superpremium ice cream, TJ's is excellent.

You have to pick and choose at TJ's. Love their marinara and puttanesca sauces, as well as their pastas. Flaxseed chips and corn relish are the best, and of course we love 2buck chuck, which is $3.39 here. They have good prices on nuts, crackers and dried fruit. I buy their champagne vinaigrette dressing 4 bottles at a time.

Haven't been to one--Have stopped in at Aldi's once or twice, and they've been so disgustingly dirty, with such horrible (rotten and smelly) produce, I have no inclination to bother driving the distance I'd have to to go to TJ's.

I agree, Azzalea,
We went into an Aldi's that opened around here, because neighbor said they were so cheap.
The store was dirty, with no-name boxed and canned goods, and the produce is garbage.

Aldi's is the parent company of Trader Joe's.

azzalea, while there is a distant business affiliation between Aldi and TJ's, they bear absolutely no relationship to each other. TJ's is kind of like a poor man's whole foods without the exhorbitant prices.

Their meat and produce are certainly not the shining stars. I don't buy their dairy (except for when they carried Plugra butter) but their ice cream is pretty darned good.

You just have to try stuff. If you don't like it, bring your receipt back with the original packaging (if you can save it) and tell them you didn't like it. They'll refund your money. They have a great return policy.

All 3 of the Aldi's I have been to have been clean, easy to navigate, great prices, and wonderful produce. They even have a great meat department, though limited.

Kaths, I can get great olive oil for good prices there. Also nuts for baking. Frozen pre measured cubes of garlic....OK, I know I can chop garlic but in summer I take some shortcuts :). I find their fresh filled pastas very good and reasonable - another of my summer fast meals is Alfredo sauce from Costco, spinach ravioli from Trader Joes. The green and yellow fresh beans in the microwave steam bags have been very good. I buy organic milk at Costco, organic eggs at TJs. I combine the bulk Costco shopping and fresh foods TJs same trip, they are about 5 minutes apart, an hour from here. Try TJs again, I'll bet you'll find some favorites. I haven't purchased many of their frozen meals, but have a box of pork dumplings in my freezer now, the woman in the aisle just ahead of me promised they are very good....we'll see.

I ditto sleeperblues. Since we moved to central FL from the Houston area (no Aldi's there), I go to our local Aldi's every week and the 2 others I've been to when out of town have been clean with great produce. I LOVE the prices! I wish we had a TJ. I found out a few months after we moved that one was coming to our former town. Sigh.

I like Aldi's too. The prices are fabulous and quality (for many things) is just fine. No problems here with cleanliness or quality produce.

I'm glad to hear that someone else was not blown away by TJs. I've gotten some things there that I like a lot but other things that were yuck. I bought some ground beef because I was there and it had a really strange smell. Not bad or rotten, just too "meaty". I had one burger and it tasted okay but the smell was such a turnoff the rest got tossed. I've also been very disappointed with much of their frozen food. On the other hand some of the frozen stuff is great like the Sweet Potato Frites and the Haricots Vert.

I do like their cheeses. I also like their liquid body wash.

I look at TJs as a supplement to my regular shopping, not a place to do the majority of my shopping.

Interesting how businesses differ from one area to another. I went to TJ's in Mt. Pleasant SC (Charleston area) in May and the produce was fabulous. We were on vacation so didn't buy any but I was certainly impressed! Actually the whole store was impressive.We have a TJ's opening next month so I'm anxious to see how it is. TN does not allow wine in grocery stores (boo hiss) so of course it will be smaller.
I've been following a TJ's thread on another forum and have a fairly large list of things that have been recommended. It still boils down to personal preference.
We have 2 Aldis and lack of cleanliness is not a factor...both are nice and clean.

jude

I agree that you have to pick and choose at TJs. We buy canned cat food there by the case (good quality for a good price). Also Trader Giotto's spaghetti sauce, pasta, the frozen steel cut oatmeal, microwave Jasmine and Brown rice, laundry detergent (lavender scent yum!), peanut butter, raw almonds, assorted dried fruits, some juices and various other snacks - the ginger snaps are awesome as are the chocolate covered raspberry and orange sticks.

We never buy produce there. Have to agree it's not the best. We go to TJs for specific items, but not for everything.

What happens at TJ's is that you get to know your favorites. These things are usually exclusive to TJ's so i don't mind going out of my way for these special items.
They send out a flyer. I find thingss that I might have passed by if not for the flyer.

The point of TJ's is all the wonderful prepared/frozen foods, and the great, inexpensive wine selection. They are not trying to be a grocery store. They carry basics like produce for people who are in a hurry and don't want to stop at another store...it's not their strong suit, and I never go there for that. I go because I can get interesting entries without a bunch of additives and nicely flavored...however I can understand how people who are not very adventurous with eating might be shocked at the authentic, spicy items. I also think that they have a lot of very drinkable wines and interesting beers that are much better priced than other stores...but if you don't drink much, then maybe that's not an attraction to you. Then there are the snacks and and candies and sauces. I always prepare a big box of TJ's stuff to send to my elderly mother each Xmas and she loves it. I always thought that if I was a young bachelor I could eat well and cheaply with the choices at TJ's. We have several of their stores in my area and I have never seen one that is dirty or has spoiled things. If that's your experience, I think it's unusual, and I bet a call to the corporate office would shake things up.

The point of TJ's is all the wonderful prepared/frozen foods, and the great, inexpensive wine selection. They are not trying to be a grocery store. They carry basics like produce for people who are in a hurry and don't want to stop at another store...it's not their strong suit, and I never go there for that. I go because I can get interesting entries without a bunch of additives and nicely flavored...however I can understand how people who are not very adventurous with eating might be shocked at the authentic, spicy items. I also think that they have a lot of very drinkable wines and interesting beers that are much better priced than other stores...but if you don't drink much, then maybe that's not an attraction to you. Then there are the snacks and and candies and sauces. I always prepare a big box of TJ's stuff to send to my elderly mother each Xmas and she loves it. I always thought that if I was a young bachelor I could eat well and cheaply with the choices at TJ's. We have several of their stores in my area and I have never seen one that is dirty or has spoiled things. If that's your experience, I think it's unusual, and I bet a call to the corporate office would shake things up.

TJ's also is great at labeling their items for special diets. Gluten-free or organic or low sodium, etc. We get their low sodium tomato soup and low sodium chicken broth. The main-stream stores have been way way behind in offerings like these. Not "reduced sodium" which is still loaded but truly low sodium.

And when you do your holiday baking, this is the place for the best nuts and dried fruits and chocolate at reasonable prices.

We don't have a TJ's so I can't comment. We do have an Aldis very near here. It's clean and nice, but I don't shop there. We also have an Amelias. Anyone else? Occasionally they have good icecrean sales. Why shop anywhere else when I have my Wegmans.

I'm really not surprised. This is how many people will find TJ to be when they give an unbiased look at it. It's good for some and bad for others as I've said in the other threads.

I gotta chuckle at those posts saying a store was dirty one time so they condemn the entire chain! It's hardly fair to condemn an entire chain for a bad experience or two in one store. Every store is going to be dirty at some time or another, it's going to depend on the management as to how often it's that way. I've been to clean Aldi (and BTW, there's no "s" in the name, it's short for Albrecht Distributing) stores and dirty ones. I've had good experiences and bad experiences in most every chain. It's the way it is.

Aldi and Trader Joe have the same basic concept and not surprising since they're both owned by the Albrechts family. Aldi was started from one family owned grocery store and two brothers grew it to an international success, then split up when they couldn't agree whether to sell cigarettes. They divided up the world but still worked together for distribution and acquisition benefits. TJ is part of the one brother's Trust. Their joint concept was and is to keep costs low, then sell high volume of a limited number of items. They sell very few brand-name items, usually only if they get a great deal on them, otherwise it's far cheaper to sell your own brand name. They also do limited advertising. TJ is essentially the yuppie version of Aldi. Neither will generally serve all your shopping needs unless perhaps you only eat tv dinners.
It's really curious how some people get SO defensive over a store of all things! Or how some can actually worship a store! I'm reminded of when "grouchy" went nuts in another thread about a big chain... LOL Geez people, it's a STORE fer cryin out loud!

Kudzu, why do you assume I am not an adventurous eater? I just don't like really spicy hot things anymore. That and there were only 4 pieces of meat in the whole meal. Not worth the price.

The eggplant parmesan (sp?) was really good. It was big enough for two meals for me. We liked the Tiramasu (sp?) too.

I read on a thread that was suggested the first time I posted about wanting to check it out...someone had talked about loving the goat cheese with Kalmata olives. I love cheese and those olives so I thought I'd try it. Didn't like it at first, but it's growing on me. I bought some pita crackers and that's what I'm eating it with.

Morz8, I didn't even see the olive oil. I think I missed 90% of the stuff because I was trying to stay out of people's way and get out of there because I had just worked 12 1/2 hours. Plus they were getting ready to close in an hour. I hate making people wait to close their stores at night so try to leave well before closing time.